2010

Tropical Rainbelts Still Shifting Global Crops

By DENNIS T. AVERY

October 30, 2012 - CHURCHVILLE, VA - PipeLineNews.org - Michel Nasibu, of business consultants KPMG/East Africa, warns that global warming has begun to devastate his continent. He writes in AfricaEagle that: “The mother of all troubles has already started rooting her tentacles all over the continent: Global Warming. . . . . Africa is slowly becoming a desert.”

James Taylor of the Heartland Institute, writing at Forbes.com, says “Not so fast.” Taylor notes a 2009 Boston University study that found satellite data showing a long-term shift in the Sahara Desert from dryer to wetter conditions. BBC News, in fact, has reported that, “Satellite images from the last 15 years do seem to show a recovery of vegetation in the southern Sahara.” Taylor also notes correctly that as the Arctic ice has melted, global rainfall has gotten slightly heavier due to more evaporation from the seas.

Both men’s forecasts are wrong, however. What’s really happening is not that the tropical rainbelts that govern Africa’s critical food production are starting or stopping. They’re moving.

October 28, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a little noticed [an Internet search revealed exactly one reference to the measure] Executive Order, released via a low-key announcement on the WH website on Friday - Executive Order -- Establishing the White House Homeland Security Partnership Council - President Barack Obama established a broad-based framework through which his administration is seeking to establish all manner of "partnerships" and "relationships," with states, localities, NGOs...you name it

All of this has been done under the guise of enhancing U.S. national security.

Given this president's already demonstrated malfeasance is dealing with national security matter - the current cover-up in the Benghazi terrorist attack being only the most recent - we fear this unprecedented, ill-defined and legally questionable order will be used to further tighten the iron grip this administration is placing on American society.

As with the president's healthcare law, the latitude granted to bureaucrats in this measure is really rather breathtaking.

1. The "Steering Committee," contains representatives of nearly every cabinet level department in government and it may be expanded to include just about anything, " At the invitation of the Chair, representatives of agencies not listed in subsection (c) of this section or other executive branch entities may attend and participate in Steering Committee meetings as appropriate."

2. The entire process seems beyond review of either House of Congress. Nominations, selection criteria, etc., all are done internally and in an opaque manner.

3. The function of this "Partnership Council," are per this statute entirely undefined within set parameters as is its scope, " Mission and Function of the Council and Steering Committee. (a) The Council shall, consistent with guidance from the Steering Committee..."

4. All that can be said at this point is that there has been no declaration or finding by either Congress or the Executive Branch that such a "Council," was needed. There was zero public debate, Congress being out, quite conveniently for Mr. Obama.

5. We note additionally that there seems to be no provision whatsoever for funding this entity, whatever form it may choose to take.

Obama Knew - Nearly 300 of the Administration's Top National Security Professionals in the Loop in Real Time

October 23, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - A stunning development has taken place regarding the Obama administration's coverup of the details surrounding the Islamic terror attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya which occurred on September 11.

It now seems certain, beyond all doubt that between 300-400 [numerous sources] top echelon members of Team Obama's national security team knew - in real time - that an al-Qaeda franchise, Ansar al-Shari'a, had claimed responsibility for the assault on the social media websites, Facebook and Twitter, as the attacks were still underway.

Fox news made the announcement on Greta Van Susteren's. "On The Record," - ABC is claiming that CBS broke the story [which may well be true, in which case, kudos to CBS]. Regardless the matter has by now gone viral and has been picked up by the legacy media's various websites, including Reuters and numerous others.

CBS merged .pdf containing what appears to be the three most relevant emails.

By DENNIS T. AVERY

October 23, 2012 - Churchvile, VA - PipeLineNews.org - German media, writing in one of the “greenest” European countries, are now veering away from green energy as fast as lagging public opinion will allow. A few years ago, Germany was “fully committed” to the EU’s goal of ending fossil fuel use. It was building lots of wind turbines, and even some solar farms despite its often-cloudy skies. After the tsunami, Prime Minister Angela Merckel announced Germany would phase out its nuclear plants quickly, implying more power from renewables.

Now, Germany is burning more coal than ever, and choking on the huge set of green subsidies to which it is already committed.

The green energy retreat surely began with the end of the global warming trend after 1998. Then, beginning 2008, Germany has had four bitter winters in row. In a long-time leftist co-authored a book called The Cold Sun: Why the Climate Catastrophe Is Not Taking Place. Fritz Vahrenholt and geologist Sebastian Luning pointed up the natural 1,500-year cycle and the sun’s recent shift into a cooler phase (patterned on my best-selling Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years.)

Vahrenholt’s German timing was perfect. The high costs of “green” electricity were beginning to impact ordinary Germans. The phase-out of the nuclear threatened to deliver brown-outs. Germany’s energy intensive industries threatened to take their jobs to the Third World.

Major German news organizations spread Vahrenholt, his activist history, and his renunciation of green energy all over the country. Then, last week Der Spiegel published a story charging that the huge German re-insurance company Munich Re had been promoting fears of global warming to justify higher insurance rates. Reporter Alex Bojanowski says Munich Re “claims to have found the first proof that man-made climate change is triggering more and more weather catastrophes in North America.”

The original piece was composed upon consultation with Reza Kahlili, a former member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard who "came in from the cold," turning CIA informant, a very dangerous but courageous move. Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym and he now resides within the United States.

Some of the exclusive information provided by Mr. Kahlili included:

"...When President Obama took office, Iran had barely enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, now they have enough for six should they decide to enrich further...When President Obama took office, the Iranians were limited to enrichment to 3% percent now they are enriching to 20 percent which is a major milestone to weaponization...When he took office, Iran was enriching uranium out of one facility "Natanz" today they are enriching uranium out of two...Since President Obama has taken office, Iran has also made great strides with its missile program now capable of reaching European capitals with missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead...While the Obama administration has been engaged in negotiations, Iran with the help of Russia, North Korea and China has been busy racing to the point of no return...is while the radicals ruling Iran are engaged in back channel negotiations with the Obama administration to gain concessions, requesting America to accept its right to nuclear energy and a continuation of enrichment, removal of sanctions in return for a stop, though temporary, of its 20 percent enrichment - but only if the West provides the same highly enriched stock to them..." [complete article available at Is Team Obama Secretly Negotiating With Iran In Ploy To Influence Election?]

Here we note that Mr. Kahlili had provided information to the same effect to other alternative media sources including World Net Daily, however to our knowledge what we published represented his most current thinking before things got really interesting.

Witness that on the 20th, the New York Times published U.S. Officials Say Iran Has Agreed to Nuclear Talks in which it claimed, relying upon leaks by "Obama administration officials," that the administration either had or was very close to inking a deal, arrived in "secret" negotiations with the Mullocracy in which Iran would at least temporarily give up its program of further enriching uranium in exchange for a lifting of the limited Western economic sanctions against the country.

Within the Times' piece was this curious paragraph, " The White House denied that a final agreement had been reached. “It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections,” Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said Saturday evening. He added, however, that the administration was open to such talks, and has “said from the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally.”

So with one hand the NY Times creates a national security firestorm and with the other hand attempts to proverbially, put the Genie back in the bottle and tamp the story down.

That is odd indeed. You can say what you want about the Time's bias, but it is an extraordinarily competent news organization in that it is not easily rolled. They may "cooperate" with various [read Democrat] administrations, politicians and allied special interest groups, but the possibility that the Times was bagged in this case is less than remote.

So what gives?

Michael Ledeen, over the weekend provided some much needed background information from the point of view of an insider.

1. Talks between the U.S. and Iran have been ongoing, "...do not know of any American president from Jimmy Carter to the present who did not secretly pursue a deal with Tehran. (I participated in such talks in the mid-1980s during the Reagan administration.)"

2. He also notes that the Times' piece stated that there was no evidence that Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had approved of any deal, assuming one was actually struck.

By WILLIAM MAYER

October 20, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - As PipeLineNews.org predicted on the 15th [see, Is Team Obama Secretly Negotiating With Iran In Ploy To Influence Election? the Obama administration seems to have sprung some manner of Iranian October surprise on the eve of the third and final presidential debate on Monday evening, the subject of which will be foreign policy.

The Obama WH is on fire because of it being caught lying about Benghazi

That this "story," is intended to influence the election is obvious; determining where exactly Team Obama is going on this is less than clear, the permutations are endless.

Some speculation later, first the claims:

Lead ppg: "The United States and Iran have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, according to Obama administration officials, setting the stage for what could be a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avert a military strike on Iran."

Now the Times' very obviously stated spin, attempting to make the case that this matter places the Romney camp in deep peril, "Moreover, the prospect of one-on-one negotiations could put Mr. Romney in an awkward spot, since he has opposed allowing Iran to enrich uranium to any level - a concession that experts say will probably figure in any deal on the nuclear program...The danger of opposing such a diplomatic initiative is that it could make him look as if he is willing to risk another American war in the Middle East without exhausting alternatives...“It would be unconscionable to go to war if we haven’t had such discussions,” said R. Nicholas Burns, who led negotiations with Iran as undersecretary of state in the George W. Bush administration..."

Nick Burns was also a member of President Clinton's dysfunctional national security team serving [1990-95] on his National Security Council. His entire CV is one of a leftie intellectual, a product of Wellesley [Hillary's alma-mater] and the Sorbonne. [source, Wiki, Nicholas Burns]. He now teaches at Harvard and is being trotted out as the pretend Bush era hawk who favors once again humiliating the U.S. in pointless negotiations with Iran over a topic - nuclear fuel enrichment which was the very cause of the most recent talks blowing up.

As a matter of fact on the last session of the failed phony diplomacy it Iran claimed an inalienable right to enrichment. In our Oct 15 piece this author wrote, "Predictably the process ended in failure, breaking down after Iran publicly humiliated the U.S. team, chastising the P5+1 proposal as unrealistic and insisting that the country would always consider its program of enrichment to be an "inalienable right," hence the major point of contention would never be negotiable.]"

These weren't random musings, there is considerable chatter bouncing about regarding desperate measures which this failed administration might take in order to influence the November 6 presidential election.

As things stand today, the debates have finally focused the public's attention on Team Obama's woeful record, economically as well as in the area of national security/foreign policy.

To many this is coming as a rather unpleasant full immersion in the truth, that Mr. Obama is a hard left [we believe neo-Marxist] fraud in an expensive suit - a suit which by the way was paid for by you and me.

Today's Gallup Poll reflects a growing lead by challenger Mitt Romney, an almost astounding 7 point one, far beyond the realm of statistical anomaly. This is not to say that the elections is over, it's far from that.

Worse yet, the third and last debate will take place this Monday, October 22 and it will be devoted to foreign policy, the absolute weakest card in Obama's already abysmal hand.

Indisputable evidence is piling up that the decision to pull security from our embassy in Benghazi, Libya was made by him, not some junior flunky in the bowels of the Dept. of State.

We hear rumblings that there are diplomatic cables suggesting that Secretary Clinton's multiple requests for increased security at Benghazi were vetoed from above and in the administration's organizational chart, Hillary reports to the president.

Read between the lines.

By EMERSON VERMAAT

October 16, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLinenews.org - CNN’s Al-Qaeda specialist Peter Bergen, author of four interesting books, paid a visit to the Netherlands in September. He was there to give a book presentation on the Dutch translation of his latest book “Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Osama bin Laden.” He also gave an interview to the liberal Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad claiming that Al-Qaeda does not pose a threat any longer. Those times are over, he said.

Bergen is echoing Jason Burke (The Guardian) and Adam Curtis (BBC), two liberal British journalists. In August 2005, shortly after the terrorist attacks in London, Curtis claimed that “we dreamed up Al-Qaeda,” we are fighting “a phantom enemy”, and must “avoid a witch hunt against the whole Islamist movement.” This is sheer nonsense, to put it mildly. One month later, Jason Burke said in an interview to NRC Handelsblad that Al-Qaeda leaders are just bluffing when they claim Al-Qaeda was behind the attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. “The attacks in Madrid were very different from previous strikes by Al Qaeda or militants acting in their style,” he wrote in a 2004 book. This is not true. Attacking multiple targets almost simultaneously is very much in line with Al-Qaeda tactics. This is what happened on 9/11, in Bali (2002), Casablanca (2003), Madrid (2004) and London (2005).

Western intelligence services and intelligence experts now believe that the attacks in Madrid and London were not simply a matter of “home grown terrorism” alone. They were very much linked to Al-Qaeda, or as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair puts it: “It was obviously part of the Al-Qaeda network.” Two members of the terrorist cell in London, Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer received terrorist training in Al-Qaeda/Taliban camps in Pakistan where the attacks were also planned. Both Khan and Tanweer were British citizens of Pakistani origin.Why are U.S. drones targeting terrorists linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas if these people and their leaders would not pose a clear and present danger to Western security any longer? Are they targeting “a phantom enemy”?

By WILLIAM MAYER

October 15, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Rapidly falling in public opinion polling after a disastrous first debate and now upon serious allegations of malfeasance and a cover-up in the Benghazi Embassy tragedy, rumors are floating about that Team Obama is working on the "mother" of all October/November surprises, one of unprecedented dimensions.

But first a bit of background, perspective for what follows:

As summer approached, the Obama administration found itself being sandbagged by the Iranians - again - pursuing pointless multilateral "negotiations," partnering with Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia [with the U.S., called the P5+1] in a vain effort to halt the country's well advanced nuclear weapons program.

Of note, China and Russia have been particularly unhelpful in reining in the Iranians, blocking key UN votes and dealing directly with them in providing missile and nuclear technology as well as engineering support. It's difficult to imagine what positive contribution these two rogue powers would make to such an effort.

Predictably the process ended in failure, breaking down after Iran publicly humiliated the U.S. team, chastising the P5+1 proposal as unrealistic and insisting that the country would always consider its program of enrichment to be an "inalienable right," hence the major point of contention would never be negotiable.

Sitting across a table and exchanging diplomatic pabulum has never proven to be an effective formula for even slowing down Grand Ayatollah, Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei's fanatical pursuit of an Iranian bomb. The country's leadership has on numerous occasions promised to destroy the state of Israel, while threatening its other "enemies" including the "Great Satan," the United States. The only weapon capable of backing up such a threat would be a nuclear arsenal.

October 11, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Props to Steven Emerson at the Investigative Project on Terrorism for catching this.

The English online version of the Arabic news source Al-Ahram has just broken a story of considerable consequence.

Today Mohammed Badie - the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood - the terrorist organization in which current Egyptian president Morsi remains a high level functionary, called for a holy war [jihad] to "liberate," Jerusalem, Israel's capital. Badie claimed that Jerusalem was "Islamic" - a central and unifying theme held by all of the major terrorist organizations as well as Iran's mullocracy.

In Al-Ahram's translation from the Arabic, "Jerusalem is Islamic ... and nobody is entitled to make concessions. The jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem is a duty for all Muslims [and] will not be done through negotiations or at the United Nations."

Badie's proclamation is an unabashed call to wage Islamic jihad against the Jews. As such it is highly provocative and the clearest sign yet that under the Muslim Brotherhood's Morsi, Egypt has moved into the Iranian camp.

Historically, the Islamic claim to Jerusalem is so without merit it's ludicrous.

By WILLIAM MAYER

October 11, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Yesterday the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, chaired by Darell Issa [R-CA] conducted extensive public hearings regarding the national security disaster which befell the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

The take away from this session is that there was little regard given to securing the embassy compound against a terrorist attack on the 11th anniversary of 9/11.

Four witnesses were called to testify under oath.

They were:

Ms. Charlene R. Lamb, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. Department of State

Mr. Eric Nordstrom, Regional Security Officer, U.S. Department of State

Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, Utah National Guard , U.S. Army

Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management, U.S. Department of State

There is one common thread which connects the testimony of these individuals, three of which are high ranking State Dept. officials.

All four of them testified that security at Benghazi was almost nonexistent, in the face of a constant threat posed by the political instability in Libya, post the overthrow and subsequent death of Muammar Gaddafi, the country's long-time dictator.

Regarding constant threats, the Heritage Foundation Foundry Blog assembled a revealing time-line demonstrating that before the September 11 deadly attack there were at least 12 serious security incidents relating to the embassy.

October 10, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - On Sunday evening downtown Oakland, CA - the area around City Hall especially - was ransacked by the Occupy Wall Street Movement. They did this in "celebration" of the first anniversary of the creation of their neo-Marxist/anarchist organization - the same one that most DC Dems including the president championed.

While local media attempted to create the impression that these folks were simply registering their dissatisfaction with the "excesses" of Wall Street and were essentially peaceful - "just like you and me" - we knew the truth because we took the time to visit with these people in their ramshackle encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza.

Five minutes at the scene was all it really took though.

While there, we conversed with probably a half dozen local reporters, both print and electronic - over the several hours we spent among this human debris.

They saw exactly what we saw. But somehow the truth ended up on the killing floor of the editing department or checked at the desk of local newspaper editors who were anxious to report their canned narrative, hopeful that this movement represented a welcome [from their point of view] challenge to the Tea Partiers, which the MSM loathes.

I remember gathering literature, revolutionary newspapers and the like and showing it to some of the above referenced reporters. The result was the thousand yard stare, they knew what they were going to report and were not about to be dissuaded by pamphlets depicting the "freedom fighters" bashing in police and businessmen's skulls with lead pipes. [Note: many more images at the "taste the madness" piece, linked above]

Sorry, that wasn't going to fly.

October 10, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - This video, prepared by the Heritage Foundation is a thorough indictment of Team Obama's malfeasance in the conduct of foreign policy. Moreover, it proves that the administration has been lying about the tragic Septermer 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya.

October 8, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a Sunday interview with the Africa Standard, Somalia's embattled president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud expressed his country's gratitude for the recent actions taken by Kenyan and allied African forces, wresting the important port city of Kismayu from the terror organization al-Shabaab.

“The Somalia government is truly grateful to Kenya for the contribution it has made to peace and stability in Somalia since 1991...The KDF soldiers shed their blood in helping us liberate Somalia and we will never forget that...”

The al-Qaeda linked group had taken refuge in Kismayu after it had been likewise been driven out of nearby towns. Kismayu's fall represents a huge strategic defeat for East African Islamism and shows that indigenous African troops are capable and willing to confront the jihad.

As we noted in an October 4 piece, Kenya Attacks Last Major Al-Shabaab Stronghold In Somalia, "The audacious beach landing in Kismayo, Somalia by Kenyan forces seemed likely to seriously hamper, if not end the major jihadistic thrust posed by al-Shabaab [an East African al-Qaeda franchise]... These developments are indeed good news for anti-jihadists in Eastern Africa since al-Qaeda has unfortunately been resurgent in the North, specifically Libya. The most recent evidence of this is of course the deadly attack on the American Embassy there, killing 4 including Ambassador Chris Stevens..."

By WILLIAM MAYER

October 4, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a pre-dawn amphibious raid conducted on September 27, the Kenyan army overran what is believed to be the last major stronghold of al-Shabaab in Somalia.

The audacious beach landing in Kismayo, Somalia by Kenyan forces seemed likely to seriously hamper, if not end the major jihadistic thrust posed by al-Shabaab [an East African al-Qaeda franchise].

Those familiar with the matter speculate that the organization might well be forced underground and thus engage in the bomb-and-run tactics so common to al-Shabaab's parent organization, al-Qaeda.

"The assault is likely to send al-Shabab fighters underground. Hardcore fighters may unleash suicide bombs and ambushes...The assault rocks al-Shabab onto its heels and comes as the government is finally getting organized [having] Last month...endorsed a new provisional constitution that expands rights for Somalis. Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi called the entry of Kenyan forces into the Somali port “a significant victory...a major blow to them and we think it’s positive for the region and for Somalia."